Milton Shupe's A-20 conversion for MSFS 2020?

[Navy Chief]

I read that this was, at one time, available for MSFS 2020 (saw a post on Flightsim.com. I do not see it listed anywhere. Was it available? If so, is it still and where?

NC

 

[SeeRyFly]

I don't remember ever seeing one posted publicly. I have a native version but the problem is that the cockpit gauges in FSX were all 2D images which don't come over, so the panel and cockpit in general are VERY bare bones. Someone would have to integrate new gauges and animations into the model to get it 'acceptable' to most.

The A-26 is also like this (worse actually), I am not sure about the B-26 but it's probably similar.

 

[lagaffe]

Last year I asked Milton if he agreed to a port of his A-26 to MSFS and he replied in the affirmative.
The A-26 is an aircraft that I have always appreciated, like the PBY no doubt because they both appear in Spielberg’s film: Always.

I work from time to time on the A-26 to bring details to the exterior part and I think that by the end of the year I could finally look at the VC and add the 3D gauges.

An image made just after the first transformation of the MDL into a Blender file while preserving the animations.
An adjustment is essential for the animations to be transferred to the correct scale, in this case the 200 keyframe wheel animations appeared on 4500 keyframes which would have required to redo them all or at least to bring them back one by one to the correct scale.
After that, it’s a fairly simple job, long but without too many surprises ... for the outside of the aircraft

 

[lagaffe]

ATTENTION, please: If some of you know if there is a high definition 4K paintkit from this aircraft, it would be very appreciated, thanks .

 

[SeeRyFly]

Last year I asked Milton if he agreed to a port of his A-26 to MSFS and he replied in the affirmative.
The A-26 is an aircraft that I have always appreciated, like the PBY no doubt because they both appear in Spielberg’s film: Always.

I work from time to time on the A-26 to bring details to the exterior part and I think that by the end of the year I could finally look at the VC and add the 3D gauges.

An image made just after the first transformation of the MDL into a Blender file while preserving the animations.
An adjustment is essential for the animations to be transferred to the correct scale, in this case the 200 keyframe wheel animations appeared on 4500 keyframes which would have required to redo them all or at least to bring them back one by one to the correct scale.
After that, it’s a fairly simple job, long but without too many surprises ... for the outside of the aircraft

I assume you are using MCX to do the conversion? If so you can enter a scale factor in the options which scales all animations during the process! Might be too late for this one but hopefully it will help in the future

 

[Navy Chief]

Thank you for all your responses! NC

 

[lagaffe]

Thanks SeeRyFly, indeed I use a version accredited by Arno to do these manipulations but Arno has modified his program a lot since 15 days and this option is no longer found (or I did not find it in the modification he made on the Options precisely).
It is this option that I used on the earlier versions.

Nevertheless, in Blender you can change the scale of the animations when importing a glTF file: by changing the factor from 24 to 1, we find the animations as they were programmed (generally those used under FS9 then FSX and P3D)
Two solutions are always better than nothing

 

[flyndive]

ATTENTION, please: If some of you know if there is a high definition 4K paintkit from this aircraft, it would be very appreciated, thanks .

If you need to upscale and define existing textures, I have a program that can do that. Let me know and I'd be happy to help.

 

[Brytskiva]

I really liked that plane ......

 

[Priller]

I especially like the B-26K Counter-Invader.

 

[lagaffe]

Answer from Arno about the scaling option: "it is in the Import/Export dialog"

@flyndive, sure i’m interested .

In the past, I looked for solutions but it was always necessary to upload our textures more than once on sites ... without knowing what these textures were becoming (I become a bit paranoid)
In this case, maybe Martial (A-26 Bourgogne) or Jankees also have PSP files resulting from old repainting

 

[jankees]

I still have a paintkit in 2048x2048 PSD files if you want it? For the A-20 too btw. The A-20 looks nice in 2020, the A-26 was less convincing I felt.

myjoy(00022) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

lace (0005) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

 

[jankees]

another one that looked very nice from the outside was Milton's Martin B-26 Marauder, but again, no real cockpit

Tom's (00004) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

kathyjean (00003) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

 

[lagaffe]

The conversion of the exterior model is not the longest nor the most difficult step on the contrary, however it is the VC that is the most time-consuming because most of these models had 2D gauges which are no longer supported so you have to build and animate everything without talking about the MXL code.
As it’s been a long time since I wanted to create an A-26 Invader, I managed over the years to retrieve a lot of documents especially on the cockpit, things that I don’t have on the A-20.
Moreover, with all the projects I have in progress and those we ask for, I am busy for a few years

 

[stovall]

The A-20 was flown by one of my special friends, a member of "The Roaring 20." He flew many missions out of the Floridablanca, Philippines. He even bombed Japanese munitions factories on Taiwan. There is a painting of just one of those missions by Jack Fellows. Just a small correction, the aircraft is known as the A-20 Havoc. No biggie.

 

[jankees]

I think he meant the A-26 Invader.

 

[TuFun]

another one that looked very nice from the outside was Milton's Martin B-26 Marauder, but again, no real cockpit

Tom's (00004) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

kathyjean (00003) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr

Those props are huge!